Adult Recommendations

Slow cookers are the way to go for many people who have little inclination or time to spend in the kitchen but want to eat a healthful meal at home. America’s Test Kitchen has come to the rescue; these folks are geniuses at understanding kitchen chemistry and prove themselves by tinkering with recipes until they get high quality results. This latest cookbook provides recipes from soups and stews to meats, casseroles to pasta, and vegetable main and side dishes to desserts. A section on cooking for two offers a range of scaled-down recipes. A welcome addition is the nutrition information provided for each recipe. If you’re looking for tasty and healthful slow cooker offerings, this book will serve you well.

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow's excellent biography, “Alexander Hamilton” has been adapted into an award-winning Broadway play titled “Hamilton.” When Alexander was born, his mother tried to find a stable living arrangement for them as a struggling single mother in the British West Indies. These early experiences influenced Hamilton, leading him to become determined, headstrong, and hard-working. Hear how General George Washington argues strategy with top aide Hamilton during the Revolution, and later how Hamilton, as the first U.S. Secretary of Treasury, insists on a centralized banking system, and how the duel with long-time nemesis Aaron Burr develops. Prepare to sit back and enjoy this fascinating life story narrated by the masterful Scott Brick, whose inflections and cadence engage and encourgage listeners.

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

In 1791, seven-year-old Lavinia, orphaned at sea while emigrating from Ireland with her family, becomes an indentured servant at the ship captain’s Virginia plantation, Tall Oaks. Placed under the care of Belle, the captain’s illegitimate, black daughter, and welcomed into Belle’s slave family, Lavinia starts in the kitchen house learning to cook and clean and then eventually to serve in the big house. Alternately told by Belle and Lavinia, their intertwined stories capture and reflect the hardships of slave life and Lavinia’s struggle to straddle the white and black worlds where her color sets her apart from her slave family and her social class separates her from the big house family. Filled with hardship and resolve, heartbreak and loyalty, and love and sacrifice, Grissom’s debut novel is captivating.